1893

Events

January

• January 2 - Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America.
• January 6 - The Washington National Cathedral is chartered by Congress; the charter is signed by President Benjamin Harrison.
• January 13
• * The Independent Labour Party of the United Kingdom has its first meeting.
• * U.S. Marines from the USS Boston land in Honolulu, Hawaii, to prevent the queen from abrogating the Bayonet Constitution.
• January 15 - The Telefon Hírmondó service starts with around 60 subscribers, in Budapest.
• January 17 - Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii: Lorrin A. Thurston and the Citizen's Committee of Public Safety in Hawaii, with the intervention of the United States Marine Corps, overthrow the government of Queen Liliuokalani.
• January 21 - The Tati Concessions Land, formerly part of Matabeleland, is formally annexed to the Bechuanaland Protectorate.

  February

• February 1 - Thomas Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey.
• February 11–19 - White Star Line cargo liner sinks without a trace in heavy seas on the Liverpool–New York transatlantic passage.
• February 23 - Rudolf Diesel receives a patent for the diesel engine.
• February 24 - The American University is established by an Act of Congress, in Washington, D.C.
• February 28 - USS Indiana, the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to other nation's battleships of the time, is launched.

  March

• March 6 - The Liverpool Overhead Railway opens with 2-car electric multiple units, the first to operate in the world.
• March 10 - Ivory Coast becomes a French colony.
• March 20 - In Belgium, Adam Worth is sentenced to 7 years for robbery.

  April

• April 1 - The rank of Chief Petty Officer is established in the United States Navy.
• April 6 - The iconic Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is dedicated, after 40 years of construction.
• April 8 - The first recorded college basketball game occurs in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, between the Geneva College Covenanters and the New Brighton YMCA.
• April 17
• * Belgian general strike of 1893: Riots erupt in Mons; the day after, the Belgian Parliament approves universal male suffrage.
• * The Alpha Xi Delta Sorority is founded at Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinois.

  May

• May 1 - The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, opens to the public in Chicago, Illinois. The first United States commemorative postage stamps are issued for the event.
• May 5 - Panic of 1893: A crash on the New York Stock Exchange starts a depression.
• May 9 - Edison's 1½ inch system of Kinetoscope is first demonstrated in public, at the Brooklyn Institute.
• May 23 - Gandhi arrives in South Africa, where he will live until 1914, lead non-violent protests on behalf of Indian immigrants in the South African Republic, and develop a deeper experience of such activities.
• June 4 - The Anti-Saloon League is incorporated, originally as a state organization, in Oberlin, Ohio. On December 18, 1895, it becomes a nationwide organization. The same year, the American Council on Alcohol Problems is established, along with the Committee of Fifty for the Study of the Liquor Problem.
• May - The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland is formed.

  June

• June 15 - 1893 German federal election: Small anti-Semitic parties secure 2.9% of the vote.
• June 17 - Gold is found in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

• June 20
• * The Wengernalpbahn railway in Wengen, Switzerland is opened.
• * Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the axe murder of her parents in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1892.

• June 22 - The flagship of the British Mediterranean Fleet collides with and sinks in 10 minutes; Vice-admiral Sir George Tryon goes down with his ship.
• June 29 - Unveiling of the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain at Piccadilly Circus in London with its statue of Anteros.

  July

• July 1 - U.S. President Grover Cleveland is operated on in secret.
• June 6
• * Wedding of Prince George, Duke of York, and Princess Mary of Teck: the future King George V of the United Kingdom marries at St James's Palace in London.
• * The small town of Pomeroy, Iowa, is nearly destroyed by a tornado; 71 people are killed and 200 injured.
• July 11
• * Liberal general and politician José Santos Zelaya leads a successful revolt in Nicaragua.
• * Kōkichi Mikimoto, in Japan, develops the method to seed and grow cultured pearls.
• July 13
• * Paknam Incident: Two French Navy ships are fired upon by Siamese cannons stationed at the Paknam Fort, that guards the Chao Phraya River. Three months later, Siam is forced to cede modern-day Laos to France.
• * Frederick Jackson Turner gives a lecture titled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" before the American Historical Association in Chicago.
• * Scottish Association football club Dundee F.C. is formed.

  August

• 6 August - The Corinth Canal is completed in Greece.
• August 14 - The world's first driving licenses are introduced in France under the Paris Police Ordinance.
• August 15 - The Ibadan area becomes a British protectorate, after a treaty signed by Fijabi, the Baale of Ibadan, with the British acting Governor of Lagos, George C. Denton.
• August 27 - The Sea Islands hurricane hits Savannah, Georgia, Charleston, South Carolina, and the Sea Islands, killing 1,000–2,000.

  September

• September 1 - William Ewart Gladstone's Government of Ireland Bill 1893, intended to give Ireland self-government, is rejected by the U.K. Parliament.
• September 7
• * Under pressure of a general strike, the Belgian Federal Parliament enacts general multiple suffrage.
• * Russian monitor Rusalka sinks in a storm in the Gulf of Finland, with the loss of all 177 crew; her hulk is eventually discovered in 2003 off Helsinki.
• * Genoa Cricket & Athletic Club, the oldest Italian Association football club, is formed.
• September 11 - The World Parliament of Religions opens as an adjunct to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago; Bengali Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda receives a standing ovation for his address in response to his welcoming.
• September 12 - American Temperance University begins classes in Harriman, Tennessee.
• September 16 - Settlers make a land run for prime land in the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma.
• September 19
• * New Zealand becomes the first country in the world to grant women's suffrage.
• * Swami Vivekananda delivers an inspiring paper at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
• September 21 - Brothers Charles and Frank Duryea drive the first gasoline-powered motorcar in America, on public roads in Springfield, Massachusetts.
• September 23 - The Baháʼí Faith is first publicly mentioned in the United States, at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
• September 27 - The World Parliament of Religions holds its closing meeting in Chicago.
• September 28 - The Portuguese sports club Futebol Clube do Porto is founded.

  October

• October 10 - The first car number plates appear in Paris, France.
• October 13
• * The first students enter St Hilda's College, Oxford, England, founded for women by Dorothea Beale.
• * The Franco-Siamese Treaty of 1893 is signed, as the Kingdom of Siam cedes all of its territories east of the Mekong River to France, creating the territory of Laos.
• October 14 - A devastating levee collapse, flash flood and landslide hit and damage around Kyushu Island, Shikoku Island and western Honshū in Japan, due to a strong typhoon wind; an official document reports that 2,044 people perish.
• October 16 - American sisters Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill copyright their book Song Stories for the Kindergarten including "Good Morning to All". The melody, by Mildred Hill, is later adapted, without authorization, by Robert H. Coleman as "Good Morning to You!", with the second stanza containing the words to "Happy Birthday to You", leading to a successful copyright lawsuit by the Hill sisters in 1934.
• October 23 - The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization is founded in the town of Thessaloniki. Its aim is to liberate the region of Macedonia from the Ottoman Turks.
• October 28 - In Saint Petersburg, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducts the first performance of his Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Pathétique, nine days before his death.
• October 30 - The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, closes.

  November

• November 1 - First Matabele War: Battle of Bembezi, British South Africa Company defeats an assault by the Matabele.
• November 7 - Colorado women are granted the right to vote.
• November 12 - The Durand Line is established as the boundary between British India and Afghanistan, by a memorandum of understanding signed by Sir Mortimer Durand, Foreign Secretary of British India, and Abdur Rahman Khan, Amir of Afghanistan.
• November 15 - FC Basel Association football club is founded in Switzerland.
• November 16 - Athletic club Královské Vinohrady, later Sparta Prague, is founded.
• November 26 - Arthur Conan Doyle's story "The Adventure of the Final Problem", published in the December dated issue of The Strand Magazine and serialized in Sunday newspapers worldwide, surprises the reading public by revealing that his popular character Sherlock Holmes had apparently died at the Reichenbach Falls on May 4, 1891.